I did a search on this Forum for this type of thread - unfortunately, there are a ton of posts that mention NF and BB for different reasons, so the search wasn’t too productive. I found threads commenting on BB’s change in business model from outlets to the combo of online/mail and outlets, and some that mention specific frustrations with each service, but not much more.
My family is about to to bite the bullet - if you could choose one today, which would you and, more importantly, why?
BB has the local stores, expediting drop-off and getting the next entries in our queue - but what other criteria should we consider?
Number of titles?
Turnaround (we live in the NYC area)?
Reliability of the service?
Playability of the DVDs? How often are they scratched or unplayable?
If being able to return the DVDs to the store and pick up more is important to you go BB. It’s not to me, so I have Netflix.
I’m gonna’ bet that most people, like me, have only tried one or the other, so getting a comparison of the two services will be difficult. Especially given variables like customer location, what kinds of stuff (current blockbusters or obscure foreign) you like to rent, ect.
I have tried both and like BB because of the in store drop off and pickup. But that was always very convenient for me as there was a Blockbuster right on the way to and from work. I quit mainly because I just do not watch movies too much these day.
This sums me up. Dropping them off at the store means they get scanned in, meaning your turnaround has a day or two cut off from it, plus being able to rent more movies from the store for free (although they just reduced that plan drastically).
I get more movies per month than I can realistically watch now. Love it.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Netflix, though. I just prefer the flexibility of Blockbuster.
So it sounds like folks don’t have specific beefs with either NF or BB regarding reliability, service or catalogue, so it comes down to how important that drop-off feature is…
If anyone else has a thought, I would love to hear it; otherwise, I need to cogitate on this drop-off feature…
They’re pretty much the same. They both have pretty good selections, with obscure titles in both catalogs, although some say Netflix is better in this respect. Blockbuster takes a more moral stance in sometimes not stocking Non-rated/NC-17 movies. I use BB mostly for the in-store trades, as they carry most of what I want, and I buy anything that I really want which they don’t stock.
Yeah, if you want to watch, say, “When a Woman Ascends the Stairs”, you’re not going to be able to pick that up at a BB store while you’re there returning “Daddy Day Care”.
Do you have kids? I would think that BB is more kid-friendly - meaning kids can’t pick what they want months in advance. They want to go into the store and peruse. Or their friend might be coming over and they want a movie now. Or they want what they want based on the cover of the box.
I prefer Netflix just because I have no reason whatsoever to go to a Blockbuster store.
We have both, actually. We originally tried out the two so as to compare, but as the trial month for each ended, we (out of sheer inertia, largely) kept both. I primarily use Blockbuster, and auntie em relies on Netflix. Below are the advantages of each as I see them:
Blockbuster
[ul]
[li]Thanks to the option to trade the mailed DVDs for off-the-shelf movies, I can generally have three mailed DVDs and three off-the-shelf out at the same time. (Because I signed up before the recent plan change, I have an unlimited number of trade-ins. Newer sign-ups, I believe, can only trade in five a month.) So, my 3-out plan can be seen as a 6-out plan.[/li][li]One coupon a month for a free rental.[/li][li]Quicker turnaround time for movies. If I return them to the store, they’re immediately scanned and the warehouse will send out the next flick in my queue.[/li][li]Sometimes, of course, I’ll want to see a movie other than what’s arrived in the mail. Being able to go to the store and grab one from the shelf if pretty handy.[/li][/ul]
Netflix
[ul]
[li]About ten thousand more advertised titles, I think. I don’t watch that many films, so I haven’t exactly tested that.[/li][li]Streaming film. I wish Blockbuster would develop a similar model.[/li][/ul]
Blockbuster has the edge on turnaround thanks to being able to turn the movies in at the store, but both services are even once the discs leave the warehouses. Netflix’s streaming is nice, but the selection is pretty thin at this point. It can only get better, though.
Discs from both places are usually in good shape. A few scratches here and there, but I don’t think any movie has been unplayable.
Overall, I prefer Blockbuster. I use the store to grab recent films and crappy old horror flicks, and the service to find most of anything else I want to see. They’d be near perfect if they added a streaming service.
By using either instead of your local independent video store, you’re moving us one step closer to a world where the only movies you can watch are the mainstream blockbusters that the corporate giants buy by the truckload.
I can see giant corporations controlling things like airlines and electricity, but having the movies you can watch on a rainy Thursday night being decided by a CPA with a spreadsheet at Blockbuster world headquarters, strikes me as a little too close to dystopia for me.
The video store I work for makes zero profit since Netflix, and that’s after firing all the employees with benefits and hiring a bunch of uninsured losers like me. Even so, it won’t last much longer.
Unless you’re OK with a world where a movie can’t even *exist *in the rental marketplace unless it’s one of this year’s megahits, and a higher and higher percentage of the movies you are allowed to choose from star the Wayans brothers, cancel Netflix and Blockbuster and spend your movie dollars locally.
Is A Ma Soeur (English translation: Fat Girl) a mainstream blockbuster hit? How about I’m Not Scared? Or Six Degrees of Separation? Those are all movies I’ve gotten from Netflix.
Blockbuster doesn’t appeal to me because even though you can get thousands of titles online (or so I have been informed), the in store stuff is pretty limited.
I used to do the local movie store thing. Until I got ripped off by the place where I rented movies. Plus, I found them snooty and obnoxious, and get much better, reliable and cheaper service from Netflix.
Ya know lissener. I have never seen a local rental place that had a decent selection of non main stream stuff. There are probably places in big cities. They are only reasonably accessible to a small portion of the populace.
Netflix has greatly greatly opened up the opportunity for small things to be seen by a wide audience.
Our local indier-than-thou video rental place impressed the hell out of me at first with its vast selection of independent, cult, foreign, and classic films, but it’s on the far side of town, rentals are for one night only (which sucks because it’s on the far side of town), and the hipster staff is usually sneering, judgmental, and generally unhelpful. Plus they have at least half of their collection on VHS, and the prices are the same as DVD rentals (which in turn are about a buck more than Blockbuster or Hollywood Video).
I just found out our local Hollywood Video is closing. That makes me sad. I liked renting from them more than Blockbuster due to better prices (but an equally-mediocre selection).
It sounds like you think Netflix is like the corner brick and morter Blockbuster. It’s the total opposite. Netflix excels at hard to find, obscure movies, and the more obscure, or older, the more likely they have it when you want it. It’s the just released megahits which end up in a “short wait” queue.
While you’re sitting at work one day and there are no customers, you really should call up the Netflix website and start comparing what you got vs. what they got.
Or even movies that just got released on DVD but were, perhaps, older. (I’m finally getting “Cruising” shipped to me tomorrow!) And you’re definitely right about it being easier to get things that are older.
I’ve seen way more independent and classic movies since I got Netflix than I ever did when I messed about with brick and mortar rental places. Having used the service for a little over a year, and regularly updating my movie queue, there have been a grand total of maybe six movies that I wanted to see, that Netflix didn’t offer. And even then, with only one exception, it’s become available in short order. I get better customer service from them, too. I’ve got scores of movies on my queue that I’d never heard of until Netflix recommended them, based on my rating of other movies. And I’ve seldom been disappointed with their recommendations, either. The only thing the local rental places have over Netflix is the instant gratification of being able to get the movie right away, instead of waiting for it to show up in my mailbox. But instant gratification is over-rated, anyway.
Somehow that seems exactly backwards to me. Local independent video stores, unless you live near an Odyssey or Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee in North Hollywood, have a very limited selection and only major titles. Netflix has everything ever released on DVD and is expanding their list constantly. A local video can’t afford to buy even one copy of something that won’t rent but once a decade, while Netflix can easily afford to have a single copy that rents nationally a few times a week at least.
As an example, let me tell you a story. I was watching the Netflix phenomena, but didn’t subscribe about 3 years ago. Since moving to a small town, I had been accumulating a long list of mostly obscure titles that I wanted to watch eventually. I took the list down to the local video, and told them to load me up with whatever they had on the list. How many was that? Ze-ro. They must have thought I made up all the titles.
I connected to Netflix, and out of the first 20 on my list, they stocked 15 for immediate shipment. That did it for me, and I signed on. Now tell me that I am encouraging mainstream blockbusters.
Obviously I exaggerated to a certain degree to make a point. Nonetheless, there are hundreds of titles–and these are only the ones I’ve noticed–that are not available through Netflix.
Even if that weren’t the case, is it really OK with you to live in a world where the local independent video store simply doesn’t exist? Where you don’t have any *choice *but to send all your rental money to a corporate giant in another state? (I hereby preemptively label as *retarded *anyone who responds that Netflix HQ is, in fact, in their state.)
I’m sad that there are no more local pet stores to speak of; the local bookstore is an endangered species. And next on the list is the local movie store. Pfft. Gone. That’s OK with you?